


That Look

by stonyd



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-30
Updated: 2012-09-30
Packaged: 2017-11-15 06:11:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/524000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stonyd/pseuds/stonyd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ficlet based on an RP I'm part of, Tony and Steve don't get along right now so I internalised some one sided StevexTony out of it that's a bit sporadic and all over the place while I'm trying to inspire myself to write more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Look

Tony didn't get along with- no, he didn't even like-  
  
If he was completely honest, Tony _hated_  Steve Rogers.  
  
It was infuriating, really. The way Steve looked at him like he was the scum of the earth. Okay, maybe he was exaggerating there, but Steve had made it perfectly clear that he didn't like Tony, and Tony made it a point to ignore the people who didn't like him. So that put Steve right up there on that list, which was actually pretty long if he thought about it, so it shouldn't have bothered him.  
  
 _Except it did_.  
  
And so, infuriating. And Tony hated him for making him feel that way. He didn't know how someone could get under his skin just by giving him _that look_ , especially when he had trained himself all his life to ignore that look from just about everyone in existence.  
  
But that was just it, wasn't it? Steve wasn't like everyone else. He was Captain freaking America. He stood for justice, freedom, and above everything else he stood for people. And yes, Tony stood for those things too, but Tony was Tony and it would always seem like the only thing he stood for was himself. That alone caused a rift between them, no matter how true it wasn't and no matter how well Captain America and Iron Man seemed to get along; Tony and Steve would always be a different story entirely.  
  
Steve was a conservative and Tony was a futurist. Tony had tried to introduce Steve to the twenty-first century, but the good ol' Captain wasn't having any of it. God forbid he learn to use a TV so he could at least keep up to date with the news, (he preferred a newspaper, the dinosaur, and what newspapers were even still _printing_  these days anyway?), though he had been convinced to at least carry a cell phone. But only for phone calls, and maybe a text message or two, ugh.  
  
But it wasn't just his lack of love for technology that bothered Tony (and Tony _just knew_  that if Steve wanted to he could learn all about it, he was just so antagonistic towards it), but it was his lack of faith in Tony's ideas. People doubted Tony all the time, that he could work out the solution to any problem in seconds, that there was a third option he could take that would benefit everyone else. But when Steve had witnessed firsthand that Tony was _always_  right and that his ideas _always_  paid off, and _still_  fought with him over it, it got very very tiresome. Moreso than it ever did with Pepper or Rhodey.  
  
“Stop treating your life like it's not worth anything!”  Steve would yell, and Tony would just demand that he leave. The second it was worth something then he _might_  consider it. But he knew that it wasn't, and so long as he got the job done that s all that should have mattered. He didn t need to remind himself every day just how useless he was without the armour, how anyone could have piloted it (hell, even Steve could do it, if he bothered to give technology a chance), how anyone- _everyone_  was more of a hero than he was and there were other people who deserved that title more than he did.  
  
But Steve reminded him. Every time Tony did something _stupid_  (except it wasn't stupid, Tony was a genius, he didn't do stupid things), Steve was always there to tell him just how _wrong_  he was and how he should have listened to orders and that he needed to be a team player all the time and not just when he felt like it-  
  
And Tony was just so sick of hearing the same thing over and over again. Especially because _that look_  was always there whenever they had this talk, and Tony hated knowing how much Steve despised him whenever he saw it on his face.  
  
Steve who Howard had looked up to. Who Howard had praised as if he were the greatest man in the world, and had spent more time searching for the dead man in the ocean than he ever did learning to be a good father or being proud of his child prodigy of a son.  
  
Steve who saw Howard every time he looked at Tony, who was stuck with his arrogant, selfish son instead of the friend who'd help turn him into a super soldier, who reminded him of everything he had lost and everything he had to get used to all at the same time.  
  
Steve who liked everyone. Steve who always saw good in everyone no matter the terrible things they had done.  
  
Everyone except Tony.  
  
Steve who was scrappy, and headstrong, and a terrific leader with great ideas, who constantly fought for what he believed in, even if that meant fighting with his partner, the other leader of the Avengers, Tony. And that put a faith in Tony that wasn't there before, because no one had fought against him so hard, no one made him think that maybe he _was_  worth something, or unknowingly made Tony a better person (and Tony was perfectly happy with how he was, he hated that Steve's presence was changing him), and Tony looked up to Steve. He admired him for it. Tony even loved-  
  
But Steve hated Tony. Steve only said those things because he was Steve. Not because he actually cared for the man who secretly thought him the greatest hero in the world. That look told him everything, that look that told him he _felt sorry_  for the genius, billionaire, playboy; that told him that he was acting like an idiot and that he was wrong about the way he felt about himself, that it was frustrating to watch Tony put himself through this self deprecation and that Steve _understood_  what he was going through and that if he would just listen then he might be able to help him... That look that spoke volumes more than his words and told Tony just how much Steve despised him.  
  
And on the off chance Tony was wrong (not likely), and that Steve _didn't_  hate Tony, and maybe, just maybe, he was just looking out for him- reaching out to him; and even though it was even less likely, maybe he even felt the same way Tony did about him, there was no way they could ever be more than what they were. Tony brought out the worst in people. He destroyed everything he touched. He may have joked about it, but he couldn't be the one who corrupted Captain America, who turned him bitter against the world because Tony was... well, Tony.  
  
And that was why it couldn't work. Why Tony couldn't really love him and had convinced himself that he hated Steve. Why everything he felt about him was infuriating and why he made himself believe that that look Steve gave him meant that he also hated Tony.  
  
So yeah. Tony hated Steve. It hurt too much to admit he felt anything else.


End file.
